Georges Jean Pinault

Georges-Jean Pinault (born 1955) is professor of linguistics at the Ecole pratique des hautes études. He is one of the leading experts on Tocharian languages and has published more than two hundred articles on Indo-European linguistics. He is one of the editors of the journal Tocharian and Indo-European Studies.

He is well known for having discovered Pinault's law, according to which laryngeals are lost word-medially following a consonant and before a yod. PIE *Hx > ∅/ C __ y